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Home > Archive > Yoga > September 2005 > "India makes moves to reclaim heritage from 'yoga piracy'"
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"India makes moves to reclaim heritage from 'yoga piracy'"
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| yared22311@yahoo.com 2005-09-24, 2:24 pm |
| India makes moves to reclaim heritage from 'yoga piracy'
By David Orr
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Published September 23, 2005
NEW DELHI -- The Indian government is furious that yoga practices
dating back thousands of years are being "stolen" by gurus and fitness
instructors in Europe and the United States.
Foreign practitioners are already said to have claimed hundreds of
patents and copyrights on poses and techniques lifted straight from
classical Indian yoga treatises.
"Yoga piracy is becoming very common, and we are moving to do
something about it," says Vinod Gupta, the head of a recently
established Indian government task force on traditional knowledge and
intellectual-property theft.
"We know of at least 150 asanas [yoga positions] that have been
pirated in the U.S., the UK, Germany and Japan," he says. "These were
developed in India long ago and no one can claim them as their own."
In an effort to protect India's heritage, the task force has begun
documenting 1,500 yoga postures drawn from classical yoga texts --
including the writings of the Indian sage, Patanjali, the first man to
codify the art of yoga. The data is being stored in a digital library
whose computerized contents will soon be made available to patent
offices worldwide.
"This is a very good idea," says B.K.S. Iyengar, the 86-year old
yoga guru credited with having introduced yoga to the West in the
1970s. "Yoga is an essential part of our heritage, and India has to
protect it."
The worst "culprits" are Indians based in America, where yoga has
become a $30 billion-a-year business -- a growth fueled by celebrity
adherents such as Madonna.
Among Western gurus who have prompted the concern, according to an
Indian official, is Bikram Choudhury, whose "Bikram" or "Vikram" method
is currently one of the most fashionable styles in the West. A session
involves a series of 26 poses in a room heated to 90 F to 100 F,
enabling students to adopt more "extreme" positions than at normal
temperatures.
A spokesman for Mr. Choudhury refused to discuss the task force
report, but the guru previously said that rather than claiming
intellectual ownership of the individual postures themselves, he has
copyrighted a sequence of poses, the dialogue that accompanies them and
the environment in which they are performed during his classes. These,
he asserts, are all of his own devising.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 134 patents on yoga
accessories, 150 yoga-related copyrights and 2,315 yoga trademarks,
says the Indian task force. It also says that Britain has approved at
least 10 trademarks relating to yoga training aids that are mentioned
in ancient texts.
According to one report, attempts have even been made in America to
patent the syllable "om," the sacred sound with which Hindus begin
their chants.
"No one should be able to claim ownership of these traditional
postures," says Mr. Gupta. "The information has been in the public
domain in India for thousands of years. But, until now, it has only
been available in languages which people in the outside world cannot
understand."
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| Ohh my dear,
Indian government has missed the train. The train of pirates are
allready gone!
Here in these lines we are talking about it,but some of the real HINDU
CITIZENS are doing this piracy thogh.
If any action will be taken in regard with this stolen subject,first of
all all the INDIAN PIRATES should be kept in their stolen actions.And
they should be presented to the international community...
For instance, T.M. SAHAJA YOGA, KUNDALINI YOGA of BHAJAN, The books of
OSHO and many others should be declared by the indian government that
these have no relation with yoga!!
With compassion,
Puma
yared22...@yahoo.com wrote:
> India makes moves to reclaim heritage from 'yoga piracy'
> By David Orr
> LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
> Published September 23, 2005
>
> NEW DELHI -- The Indian government is furious that yoga practices
> dating back thousands of years are being "stolen" by gurus and fitness
> instructors in Europe and the United States.
> Foreign practitioners are already said to have claimed hundreds of
> patents and copyrights on poses and techniques lifted straight from
> classical Indian yoga treatises.
> "Yoga piracy is becoming very common, and we are moving to do
> something about it," says Vinod Gupta, the head of a recently
> established Indian government task force on traditional knowledge and
> intellectual-property theft.
> "We know of at least 150 asanas [yoga positions] that have been
> pirated in the U.S., the UK, Germany and Japan," he says. "These were
> developed in India long ago and no one can claim them as their own."
> In an effort to protect India's heritage, the task force has begun
> documenting 1,500 yoga postures drawn from classical yoga texts --
> including the writings of the Indian sage, Patanjali, the first man to
> codify the art of yoga. The data is being stored in a digital library
> whose computerized contents will soon be made available to patent
> offices worldwide.
> "This is a very good idea," says B.K.S. Iyengar, the 86-year old
> yoga guru credited with having introduced yoga to the West in the
> 1970s. "Yoga is an essential part of our heritage, and India has to
> protect it."
> The worst "culprits" are Indians based in America, where yoga has
> become a $30 billion-a-year business -- a growth fueled by celebrity
> adherents such as Madonna.
> Among Western gurus who have prompted the concern, according to an
> Indian official, is Bikram Choudhury, whose "Bikram" or "Vikram" method
> is currently one of the most fashionable styles in the West. A session
> involves a series of 26 poses in a room heated to 90 F to 100 F,
> enabling students to adopt more "extreme" positions than at normal
> temperatures.
> A spokesman for Mr. Choudhury refused to discuss the task force
> report, but the guru previously said that rather than claiming
> intellectual ownership of the individual postures themselves, he has
> copyrighted a sequence of poses, the dialogue that accompanies them and
> the environment in which they are performed during his classes. These,
> he asserts, are all of his own devising.
> The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued 134 patents on yoga
> accessories, 150 yoga-related copyrights and 2,315 yoga trademarks,
> says the Indian task force. It also says that Britain has approved at
> least 10 trademarks relating to yoga training aids that are mentioned
> in ancient texts.
> According to one report, attempts have even been made in America to
> patent the syllable "om," the sacred sound with which Hindus begin
> their chants.
> "No one should be able to claim ownership of these traditional
> postures," says Mr. Gupta. "The information has been in the public
> domain in India for thousands of years. But, until now, it has only
> been available in languages which people in the outside world cannot
> understand."
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| The worst case I have heard is about Brasil:
-- there are a certain "guru" called DeRose whom pretend to have the
best yoga of the world called "swasthya y=F4ga" (!), tryes to manipulate
his students by distorting information (etc) like he was himself a sort
of a god, manipulates public opinion by public exibitions,
propaganda,politics, sex-tantric, etc;
-- the situation reached a situation that all the currents of yoga, had
to join in an association called "alian=E7a de yoga" to be stronger to
fight him. Because he wanted to certify and teach the other lines (the
true ones - original from India) by law......
(He also operates in Portugal, but in a lesser scale...)
Moon
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